Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Poster suggested Beirne could be skipper, this was your reply;

“Beirne should not be on tour, we know what he delivers and he could do with the summer off

Doris has been stand in captain for POM so it's safe to assume he'll get that role in SA”

So why rest Beirne and not other players with a lot of minutes?

@phog

Maybe I’ve taken you up wrong but your posts come across as saying Beirne should be singled out for special treatment.
Personally I think none should be rested for the tour if fit, they get rested for the club games.

Ah here, you're the one being disingenuous, you trawled through my posts to try and find me mentioning Beirne and then ignored the previous post where once again someone else mentioned Beirne.

It's gas at this stage that you really want to turn this into something it's not.

To me, @AbusesToilets post reads like a response to a previous post about Henderson, and mentions Beirne in the same context as McCarthy & Ryan.

Your post doesn't read like a response. It reads like a strongly held opinion that Beirne, specifically, should not travel to SA as he has played 'enough rugby'.

Perhaps you did not intend it to be read as such, but it looks definitive.

Yes, this is not difficult.

Henderson is injured, AB mentions that he thinks Henderson may not make the squad anyway and then names 3 players that would be ahead of him, two on whom are in their early 20s, one of whom is in his 30s.

I suggested resting guy in his 30s.

Ageism

You told me in a Pvt Message that you aren't interested in any of my replies.

If that is your view then the you're really only posting for point scoring and in view of your recent (now deleted) post on how you view anyone from Munster this will be my last reply to you.

I don't think POM was as good as he has been last season. Baird and Ahern were both better than him this year imo, and there's also Prendergast. I feel like this is the time to move on from him. He's only going to trend down, and we have excellent replacements.

Likewise, I don't think we should take both of Murray and Casey. Doak would be a call for the future, or Cooney outright based on form, if we're wanting an old head. Murray should be retired period.

Jesus Christ if the likes of Healy, POM and Murray go on this tour then we deserve every bit of quarter final misery we get

The World Cup is 3 years away, if you are just going to discuss the World Cup on every post its going to be a long long 3 years

😂

You probably could select with the World Cup in mind in the case of Healy and Murray - two bench players - with minimal impact on the chances of actually winning versus SA. Promote the third choices to the bench - Loughman/O'Toole at loosehead, and Casey at scrumhalf, and select a high potential emergent player who you project to be there or thereabouts as a potential first XXIII player come 2027 as the back-up, third choice option. They likely wouldn't actually see gametime, as it's only two matches, but could benefit from being brought into the set-up.

If selecting a high potential young player such as Paddy McCarthy or Matthew Devine would complicate things because they're expected to start back training ahead of next season sooner then you could just pick more established players as third choices - have Loughman and O'Toole as the reserves behind Porter, and perhaps Doak instead of Murray.

There's a good argument for it. You have to move on at some point.

The squad for the South Africa tour could be something like this:
LP: Porter, Healy, Loughman
HK: Sheehan, Kelleher, Herring
TP: Furlong, Bealham, Jager/O'Toole
TL: McCarthy, Ryan
LL: Beirne, Ahern
BF: O'Mahony, Baird
OF: Van der Flier, Timoney/Connors
N8: Doris, Conan
SH: Gibson-Park, Murray, Casey
OH: Crowley, Frawley, H Byrne/R Byrne
LW: Lowe, Stockdale
IC: Aki, McCloskey
OC: Ringrose, Henshaw
RW: Nash, Larmour
FB: O'Brien
Utility: Osborne
I'd say Osborne will replace Ringrose if he doesn't show fitness by the end of this season. Otherwise he is either a utility back or next in line to be called up if needed.
There's a possible toss-up between Stockdale and Larmour, if so I'd go with Larmour.
I'd choose H Byrne, Timoney and Jager over R Byrne, Connors and O'Toole respectively.
A close call is Tom Stewart losing out to Herring.

I can't see any surprises in the summer squad really.
It's possibly a bit tough on Cian Prendergast if he doesn't get a spot but I think they'd prefer Ahern and Baird as lock/blind-side flanker cover, and Timoney as cover across all three positions in the back row.

Milne's so dodgy in the scrum though. Loughman's miles ahead of him in that regard.

Boyle is the perfect selection for the Emerging Ireland tour, it seems to me. It would leave Leinster working with Milne and McCarthy at the start of next season before the internationals filter back in, and the Ireland coaches get to integrate Boyle, who is currently behind Milne but probably a better prospect right now due to Milne's poor scrummaging.

I'd say the time to start moving on in terms of the selected starting 15 and bench will be directly after the New Zealand match in November. The teams facing Argentina and Fiji in particular should have some new blood in them.

Nah because then we'll be told "we need to prepare for the 6N, so we can't experiment"